Prime Ages

31032020

Your Blogmeister’s German Desk.

Kind of a weird birthday for me, in spite of all the good that has transpired since my last birthday. I’m turning a prime number age (43) in the middle of a worldwide economy-wrecking viral pandemic that’s part there-there and part hysteria. Last birthday, I gave myself a spa town weekend, and little could I know that on my next birthday, I would be married, though my wife and I would be pretty much under a soft quarantine. Who knows what things will be like on my 44th birthday, even though I know for sure it won’t be a damned prime number.

I’m also running out of x-1/x+1 prime number pair age sequences. You know, where for two years out of a three year stretch, your age is a prime number. After your eighth birthday, you get those at 11-13, then 17-19, then 29-31, then 41-43. The only two such pair left in the double digits are 59-61, and 71-73. Interestingly, you get two pair in the first decade after turning 100, if you’re that lucky: 101-103, and then 107-109. Then none until 137-139, but no human has ever lived that long.

Indian H-1B workers are lobbying the White House for rules to help them stay in the United States until the economy recovers from the coronavirus crash.

Federal rules require unemployed H-1B visa workers to leave the United States in 60 days after they lose their jobs. This 60-day rule was not a problem before the coronavirus, partly because fired H-1B workers could simply get new jobs from Indian-run outsourcing companies.

Tuesday, March 31, marks International Transgender Day of Visibility (TDoV) 2020. It’s a time not only to celebrate transgender, gender-nonconforming and nonbinary (TGNCNB) people but also to raise awareness of the challenges they face, including discrimination, homelessness and heightened risk of contracting HIV.

Abortion clinics are "essential" and remaining open. Churches are "non essential" and being forcibly closed. Pastors who hold services are arrested. This is some kind of left wing dystopian nightmare, only it's real. It's happening. And many "conservatives" are okay with it.

The Arizona woman who said that she and her 68-year-old husband ingested a substance used to clean fish tanks after hearing President Donald Trump tout chloroquine as a cure for the coronavirus has given thousands of dollars to Democratic groups and candidates over the last two years.

"Stop the work visas by executive order and a directive to DHS. If Democrats oppose it, tell the Americans put out of work by the Chinese Virus that the Party of Pelosi values corporate profits more than American workers."#coronavirushttps://t.co/7NsI8cxZAK

Seattle’s top cop may want to get her priorities straightened out. In the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic, Police Chief Carmen Best used her most recent “chief’s brief” update on the coronavirus crisis to urge residents to dial 911 if they are the victims of racist name-calling.

I had a “surprise” birthday party last night at my father-in-law’s house, which I knew was coming because my sister-in-law let it slip. But it went so long that we got too tired for Frau. Blogmeister to give me her planned present; We’ll take a rain check until this weekend.

Something that happened last week reduced our already 50-50 chances of being able to go on it to about 90-10 against. I can’t say that here without giving me and us away. But one other thing which would have done the same happened yesterday, even though it’s not related to where we are going and what we are doing for the honeymoon: The July 25 to August 30 Bayreuth Festival has been canceled.

The shutdown of the American economy by government decree should end. The lasting and far-reaching harms caused by this authoritarian precedent far outweigh those caused by the COVID-19 virus. The American people—individuals, families, businesses—must decide for themselves how and when to reopen society and return to their daily lives.

I’ve written here on several occasions that when quantum computing becomes mainstream, it’s going to be a solution that will wind up seeking and solving an unfathomable number of problems and complex problems.

I saw the history of the largest known prime number. At the beginning of 1951, the largest known prime number was a 39-digit number discovered in 1876, the largest such number in the handwritten math era. By the end of the next year, 1952, the largest known prime was 687 digits long, because that’s when academia took up digital computing.

Prime numbers? Hell, that’s nothing compared to this Pi obsession. End of January we got another record, 50 trillion digits. By comparison, on my 20th birthday, we only knew 6.4 billion digits.

In reality, you only need 39 digits to calculate the circumference of a circle the size of the observable universe to the accuracy of the length of a single hydrogen atom, proof linked below. Not 39 trillion, or 39 billion, or 39 million, just 39.

Also, the ancient 355/113 approximation is so good that a circle with a diameter of 113 miles has a circumference that is only 1.9 inches short of 355 miles.

3042020

Alex the Goon(19:21:07) :

Damn, even I can remember out to 1415926. 355/113 is already off at the “6”.